03 May, 2010

Richard J. Butler is a military 'expert' who authored the so called "Srebrenica Military Narrative" in 2000 (and then he published a revised edition in 2002) detailing "the information which links the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) to the multitude of criminal acts which occurred relative to the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995."

The report was so poorly done, the Office of the Prosecutor should be embarrassed for allowing this incompetent individual to poison the well of history. For example, Richard Butler writes:

"On 20 April 1992, the first ambush of local Serbs occurred in Potocari, where six Serbs were killed, and four were wounded. On 07-08 May 1992, Bosnian Muslim forces recaptured the nearby town of Srebrenica, killing a number of Bosnian Serbs, allegedly including Goran Zekic, a deputy in the SRBIH Assembly."

The above statement is one sided, inaccurate, biased, and shameful attempt to re-write the truth. Why did Richard Butler NOT mention in his report Serbian attrocities against the unarmed Bosniak civilians that occurred during the first fall of Srebrenica and subsequent occupation of the town in a period from 18 April to 8 May 1992? During the same period, Serbs killed and burned scores of Bosniak civilians in the downtown Srebrenica; the youngest victim, Nezir Suljic, was only 1 year old. Serbs slaughtered 65 unarmed Bosniak civilians - women, children, and the elderly men - in the village of Glogova on 9 May 1992. Then on 16 May 1992, Serbs entered the village of Zaklopaca and slaughtered at least 63 unarmed Bosniak civilians. Richard Butler never mentioned those massacres in his "Srebrenica Military Narrative" report. In the meantime, from early April to mid May, Serbs forcibly expelled 70,000 Bosniak civilians from their homes in the Srebrenica region (area encompasing municipalities of Srebrenica, Bratunac, Vlasenica, Rogatica, and Visegrad). Between April and July 1992 (three years before the Srebrenica genocide), Serbs torched more than 300 Bosniak villages in the area.

Consider the following allegation by Richard Butler:

"The Drina Corps [of the Bosnian Serb Army] was formed on 01 November 1992...in response to the growing security threat posed along the western regions of the Drina River by Muslim strongholds in the mountainous regions of Cerska, Srebrenica, Zepa, Gorazde, and the outlying areas of Visegrad."

We ask Richard Butler: A 'security threat' from WHO? The fact is that by November 1992, Serb forces successfully completed the ethnic cleansing of 95% of the territory of Podrinje - the River Drina valley of eastern Bosnia. Thousands of Bosniak civilians flocked to isolated enclaves of Srebrenica, Zepa, Cerska and Gorazde. They sought safety from persecution. The Bosniak people/refugees represented the 'threat' to nobody, let alone to the extremely well equipped Yugoslav People's Army that changed uniforms into the Army of Republika Srpska.The Bosniak defenders of Srebrenica were poorly armed, mostly with hunting rifles, and unprepared for the conflict, as already stated in the trial judgement of Naser Oric:

"The Bosnian Muslim side did not adequately prepare for the looming armed conflict... There were not even firearms to be found in the Bosnian Muslim villages, apart from some privately owned pistols and hunting rifles; a few light weapons were kept at the Srebrenica police station."

Richard Butler made another false allegation in his report. Like his previous untruths, the following lie by Richard Butler was also deliberately misleading:

"The local Bosnian Muslims operating from the Srebrenica area began mounting a series of raids and attacks which caused a significant number of Serb casualties, particularly among villages and even Municipal Defense commanders. By the end of May 1992, large scale and effective ambushes were being successfully orchestrated by the Bosnian Muslims."

"The few 'raids' the Bosniaks mounted out of Srebrenica were of little or no military significance. These raids were often organized in order to gather food, as the Serbs had refused access for humanitarian convoys into the enclave. Even Serb sources approached in the context of this report acknowledged that the Bosniak forces in Srebrenica posed no significant military threat to them.... Serbs repeatedly exaggerated the extent of the raids out of Srebrenica as a pretext for the prosecution of a central war aim: to create geographically contiguous and ethnically pure territory along the Drina, while freeing their troops to fight in other parts of the country."

Shame on you Prosecutors for hiring this incompetent individual to do to any serious research for your office. And shame on your Richard J. Butler for attempting to poison the well of history. It won't work. Numerous judgements against the Chetniks around Srebrenica (both ICTY and Court of B&H) have already confirmed that 99% of crimes in the Srebrenica region were committed by the Bosnian Serb side.

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Srebrenica Genocide is not a matter of anybody's opinion; it's a judicial fact recognized first by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and subsequently by the International Court of Justice.